Capitol of Columbia Plans to Use Cannabis to Help Fight Drug Addiction

The City of Bogota, the capitol of Columbia, is considering a new program to help the drug addicts in their city break their addictions using marijuana. For years the country has combated widespread drug use, particularly of a drug called basuca (similar to crack cocaine). To combat the social and health problems associated with this drugs’ use, and the symptoms of withdrawal users suffer, the city plans to open “controlled consumption centers”, where addicts can go to safely consume, and work towards weaning themselves off the drugs.

According to Julián Quintero, who works on drug policy with the Bogota-based non-profit organization Acción Técnica Social, the centers will work as such:

“The first thing you do is to start to reduce the dose. After that, you begin to change the way that it’s administered: if you were injecting heroin, you move to smoking heroin; after smoking heroin, you move to combining it with cannabis; after that, you’re staying with the cannabis,” he said. “What you’re looking for is for the person to reach a point where they can stabilize the consumption and that the consumption doesn’t prevent them from being functional.”

BBC Mundo reports this program could begin as soon as two months from now.